Please suggest a JSW editor.

[jetsetdanny]

3 hours ago, Jet Set Willie said:

I think I had calculated the lower ramp´s position correctly and moved it few times. Perhaps it needs just more of that. The ramp actually continued on the right from the bottom room, and there the "bottom right room ramp" was not positioned correctly either for walking from room to room. But like said, the upper room ramp was corrupted, as it´s character cell was turned to water character cell, preventing walking.

 

Isn't this because in the upper room the colour attributes of the ramp are the same as the colour attributes of Water? As a result of which, the Water-ramp cells take the shape of Water (but at the same time should behave as ramps, I think).

If this is the case, you should just change the attributes of either of them and then the ramp will become 'ramp only' again (with its proper shape) and Water will become 'water only' (with its proper behaviour).

[Spider]

Sometimes, (perhaps Danny will agree or maybe not) purposely setting ramp or conveyor to water in 'special' rooms with careful cell design can be used to create some quirky intended effects.

I recall when doing the (not released yet***) C16 and +4 versions of JSW I accidentally set some cells the same as at the time I was more interested in getting "all the data in correctly laid out" , which resulted in almost a see-saw effect as Willy walked along the floor. 😄

 

*** Ask me about this if you want, in a new topic maybe or a PM.

🙂

[Jet Set Willie]

Back to earlier guardian problem. I had thought that mentioned guardian classes and instances feature and checking and modifying them will solve the problem. Now I tried to concentrate on that, but the problem is worse. I had originally tried to put two sprites to just one room and succeeded in that. Then I changed rooms and found out JSWED had added those two sprites to all the other ten rooms what currently were made back then! Also, in bottom right where existing guardians with their classes are shown for possible 1-8 guardians, all 8 positions were filled with guardians, every position showing the same guardian with the same guardian class 00! Yes, all 10 rooms had (and still have) the same problem! I have later added more rooms, and that problem weren´t slipped to new rooms at all, it stays among those ten first rooms. Yesterday and today I had tried many times to delete those guardians using G: Guardian and by highlighting the bottom right 1-8 guardians one by one and right clicking them to get to Delete and deleted all of them one by one. But when I changed the room and back, to see if I had succeeded in deleting, all of them were always there, unharmed! No matter if I deleted all 8, or 1 or 3 or any amount between 1-8, every 8 were always there again when I changed to the other room and then came back. In all 10 mentioned rooms they stay unharmed, no matter in which room I try to delete any amount of them. I have tried to delete them and then SAVE with F2 and shut off JSWED and starting JSWED again and loading the just saved file, no hope. All 8 in that room are still there.

In editing screen (the room layout with tiles and sprites) there were either one or two sprites moving in their "tracks", depending on the room. I tried to change their X and Y positions, just to see how many of them there actually are, as I thought that all 8 may be moving in the very same position, ie the top one masking all the 7 others. But if I moved one sprite to different position, no other sprites came visible, so either there were just one on screen (in some rooms there are two sprites moving, some other rooms have just one), or all 8 moved at once.

I once managed to get "two ball sprite" (found in the Bathroom) and ufo (from the Bridge, I think) to visibly move at the same position on screen, one masking the other one, both had the same yellow colour, no matter that I changed "two ball sprite" to black to see it better.

I will need help to get rid of those 80 sprites. I had added two sprites in just ONE room, WITHOUT adding any guardians in the other rooms AT ALL and got eighty or so instead to TEN rooms. 🙄

 

I hope I had made this clearer this time. 🙂

[Jet Set Willie]

17 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Isn't this because in the upper room the colour attributes of the ramp are the same as the colour attributes of Water? As a result of which, the Water-ramp cells take the shape of Water (but at the same time should behave as ramps, I think).

If this is the case, you should just change the attributes of either of them and then the ramp will become 'ramp only' again (with its proper shape) and Water will become 'water only' (with its proper behaviour).

I thought I had taken care of that already when I was designing those ramps and checked that everything worked in one room before making another ramp in neighbour room, but as I checked it now, I had forgotten to check it. In "final version" those ramps in three rooms were joined correctly, no problems with that, I just had forgot to check that colour attribute thing, I just thought I had done it. 😄 But when I checked the room on emulators before changing the ramp to other colour than the water, I found out that the earth cells were disappeared from that room! Earth was already having different colour than ramp and water, also Earth had different colour than Willy, if that means anything. No, earth and air had different colour, if you thought that. 🙂 When I changed the earth cell colour, it became visible on emulators. 🤔

1 hour ago, Spider said:

Sometimes, (perhaps Danny will agree or maybe not) purposely setting ramp or conveyor to water in 'special' rooms with careful cell design can be used to create some quirky intended effects.

I recall when doing the (not released yet***) C16 and +4 versions of JSW I accidentally set some cells the same as at the time I was more interested in getting "all the data in correctly laid out" , which resulted in almost a see-saw effect as Willy walked along the floor. 😄

 

*** Ask me about this if you want, in a new topic maybe or a PM.

🙂

I found out the same see-saw walking with my experimentings and accidents. 🙂

Edited January 15, 2023 by Jet Set Willie

[Jet Set Willie]

Now, I tried to continue another project, as I haven´t been able to understand why JSWED won´t allow me to use guardian sprite animation the way I want to, as I had managed to make similar action in my Mass Collaboration room already. I have been confused, as guardian animations weren´t what I had choosed in "Guardian Editing window". When I had selected a proper animation in Guardian Editing window, the animation sequence is all wrong when it plays in a room after I have closed the Guardian Editing window.

As I tried it once again now, I noticed that when I right-click the wanted guardian from that "8 guardian sprite list" from the bottom right and then select Guardian->Edit and in Guardian Editing window I once again tried to select suitable animation, by changing numbers in "Animation", I noticed that when I close Guardian Editing window by selecting "OK" and instantly go back to Guardian Editing window, animation number is wrong, it´s not the one I had choosed. Animation number stays correct, if I select animation number 0-7, but any number bigger than that, it gets changed to a smaller number, always less than 8. This makes it impossible to get a suitable guardian animation! 😟

 

[jetsetdanny]

On 1/16/2023 at 4:51 AM, Jet Set Willie said:

Now, I tried to continue another project, as I haven´t been able to understand why JSWED won´t allow me to use guardian sprite animation the way I want to, as I had managed to make similar action in my Mass Collaboration room already. I have been confused, as guardian animations weren´t what I had choosed in "Guardian Editing window". When I had selected a proper animation in Guardian Editing window, the animation sequence is all wrong when it plays in a room after I have closed the Guardian Editing window.

As I tried it once again now, I noticed that when I right-click the wanted guardian from that "8 guardian sprite list" from the bottom right and then select Guardian->Edit and in Guardian Editing window I once again tried to select suitable animation, by changing numbers in "Animation", I noticed that when I close Guardian Editing window by selecting "OK" and instantly go back to Guardian Editing window, animation number is wrong, it´s not the one I had choosed. Animation number stays correct, if I select animation number 0-7, but any number bigger than that, it gets changed to a smaller number, always less than 8. This makes it impossible to get a suitable guardian animation! 😟

 

I don't really understand what the problem is, so I'll try to describe the way guardian editing works with a hope that it will be helpful, plus there is one piece of counterintuitive behaviour in JSWED which may be confusing, and I'll describe it too.

The value of guardian animation has to be between 0 and 7. Other values are incorrect, so forget about them. JSWED is right in correcting them back to the proper range.

This animation value determines how many guardian frames are used. Guardians can use up to 8 frames. They can also use just one frame, or two, or four. I am not sure right now if you can have guardians using 5 frames. I don't think so, but I can't say that definitely off the top of my head. 

A "fully designed" horizontal guardian uses all eight frames. Its movement is more 'detailed' than if it only had four frames, its animation is "more full". It can have four frames only and be a nice guardian too, but especially if it's a 'humanoid' kind of guardian (like Willy or a walking skeleton or something), I think it's always better for it to use 8 frames. 

Vertical guardians typically use between two and four frames, I think. It's probably possible to design an 8-frame vertical guardian too, I'm not sure right now, I can't think of any.

So the value of "animation" determines how many frames will be used. I can't explain exactly how this works, I think it's more or less like the value 0 corresponds to one frame, the value 01 to two frames, and so on, until the value 07 corresponds to eight frames. Well, certainly 0, 1, 3 and 7 work like this (for 1, 2, 4 and 8 frames), I am not sure about the other values, because they are not 'typical'.

This is one parameter you set. Then comes another - which frames you actually use. This is controlled by pressing - on the main editing screen, NOT in the 'Guardian - Edit' box! - the ALT key and a number defining which guardian you are modifying. The guardian number can be from 1 to 8 (I am talking about editing a JSW48 game, so like the original JSW), because there are up to 8 guardians in a room. Pressing ALT + guardian number will only affect these guardians which are in the room, of course, so if you have added two guardians to the room, if you press ALT + 1 something will happen, if you press ALT + 2 something will happen, but if you press ALT + 3 or any higher number, nothing will happen because there are only two guardians in the room at this time (there is no guardian No. 3 or No. 4, etc.).

When you press ALT and the guardian number, the frames which are used change. Here's JSWED's counterintuitive behaviour I mentioned earlier: you can have one guardian highlighted on this main editing page. In this screenshot, for example, guardian No. 3 is highlighted (G32):

You would think (I would, at least) that whatever you do will affect the highlighted guardian. However, when using ALT + guardian number, it's not like that. The change of selected frames will affect the guardian whose number you have chosen, NOT NECESSARILY the selected guardian. If the guardian number you chose is not the selected (highlighted) guardian, you can see the change in the sprite of this guardian moving on the screen (in the centre of JSWED's window, where you see the room), but NOT at the bottom on the screen where frames of a guardian are displayed. These are the frames of the highlighted guardian. In this example, f you pressed ALT and 3, they would change, because the selected (highlighted) guardian is number 3 in the guardian list in this room (the G32 one). However, if you pressed ALT and 1, the frames of the first guardian will change (the G30 one), because he is first on the list. This is the misleading, counterintuitive part: one may think that the guardian frames displayed at the bottom of JSWED's window should be changing, but they won't be, unless you press ALT and the number of the guardian that is currently selected (highlighted).

Of course if you want to work on the selection of frames seeing them clearly at the bottom of JSWED's window, you can do it. You just need to select (highlight) the particular guardian whose frames you want to modify. Then you will see the changes you apply by ALT + guardian number both in the guardian itself (moving on the screen in the middle of JSWED's window) and in the guardian frames displayed at the bottom of JSWED's window.

Once you realise that, the rest is easy. You need to set two parameters: the animation number to the desired number of frames the guardian is supposed to use (value between 0 and 7, so the number of frames between 1 and 8), and then, by using ALT + guardian number, choose the frames you actually want the guardian to use.

I always do it by trial and error. There are various combinations there, I couldn't describe how they work exactly (how the ALT + guardian number frame selection process works, how exactly frames are selected). I just do it by trying all possible options and seeing which one I like best. 

Just one word of caution here: sometimes it's impossible to get exactly what you want. I mean, for example you choose animation number 3 - the guardian is supposed to be using four frames - and want it to use only the first and the fourth frame, the first one being used twice and then the fourth one being used twice in the four-frame sequence. I have no idea if that particular combination is possible. It may be that it's not possible, and if it's not possible, I believe there's nothing you can do about it if JSWED does not show you such a combination. The only thing you can try would be swapping the guardian's frames in the Sprites editing box, for example: the combination I described above - a four-frame guardian using first frame No. 1 twice and then frame No. 4 twice may not be possible. But a four-frame guardian using first frame No. 1 twice and then frame No. 3 twice may be possible (I'm giving a general example, I'm not checking if the examples I give right now actually work or not). So the solution for you would be to move the sprite graphic you have in frame 4 to frame 3 and then set the combination of animation and frame selection that works. This is easy, but if you have other guardians using the same sprites, it might get tricky, because they might require different frames. However, that's a pretty 'advanced' problem, generally editing guardians is not difficult once you're aware of the things I tried to describe above.

I hope that helps 🙂 .

[Spider]

Excellent description Danny.

Yes that guardian edit has caught me too.

Although not 100% neccessary I do find it helpful to make sure the guardian I am altering is the selected one then use ALT+(number) for it.

As you say sometimes you have to try it a few times until it looks OK. I also find moving screens, even just a quick left / right back to the original screen is helpful as it resets their initial positions.

[jetsetdanny]

Yes, I do 'there and back' thing as well if I want to check the guardians' initial position. It's a useful hint 🙂 .

[Jet Set Willie]

On 1/19/2023 at 7:16 AM, jetsetdanny said:

 

The value of guardian animation has to be between 0 and 7. Other values are incorrect, so forget about them. JSWED is right in correcting them back to the proper range.

I did tests with my Mass Collaboration room using those original Willy sprites. Combination of ALT 1-8 + animation numbers in guardian editing box seemed to offer "unlimited" amount of Willy sprite frame possibilities, that confused me. It´s confusing that JSWED allows to put bigger animation numbers than 7.

Quote

So the value of "animation" determines how many frames will be used. I can't explain exactly how this works, I think it's more or less like the value 0 corresponds to one frame, the value 01 to two frames, and so on, until the value 07 corresponds to eight frames. Well, certainly 0, 1, 3 and 7 work like this (for 1, 2, 4 and 8 frames), I am not sure about the other values, because they are not 'typical'.

This is one parameter you set. Then comes another - which frames you actually use. This is controlled by pressing - on the main editing screen, NOT in the 'Guardian - Edit' box! - the ALT key and a number defining which guardian you are modifying. The guardian number can be from 1 to 8 (I am talking about editing a JSW48 game, so like the original JSW), because there are up to 8 guardians in a room. Pressing ALT + guardian number will only affect these guardians which are in the room, of course, so if you have added two guardians to the room, if you press ALT + 1 something will happen, if you press ALT + 2 something will happen, but if you press ALT + 3 or any higher number, nothing will happen because there are only two guardians in the room at this time (there is no guardian No. 3 or No. 4, etc.).

Yes, thank you, I was aware of using ALT + 1-8. 🙂 And partly aware of "0, 1, 3 and 7 work like this (for 1, 2, 4 and 8 frames", now I know that better, too. 🙂

Quote

I always do it by trial and error. There are various combinations there, I couldn't describe how they work exactly (how the ALT + guardian number frame selection process works, how exactly frames are selected). I just do it by trying all possible options and seeing which one I like best. Just one word of caution here: sometimes it's impossible to get exactly what you want.

Same here. Some things will become possible only by using mix of coordinates and speed you was not thinking of, otherwise, if you can´t alter coordinates of guardian movement, you will just have to accept wrong kind of animation or think of something else.

Quote

 

I mean, for example you choose animation number 3 - the guardian is supposed to be using four frames - and want it to use only the first and the fourth frame, the first one being used twice and then the fourth one being used twice in the four-frame sequence. I have no idea if that particular combination is possible. It may be that it's not possible, and if it's not possible, I believe there's nothing you can do about it if JSWED does not show you such a combination. The only thing you can try would be swapping the guardian's frames in the Sprites editing box

Yes, I have thought the same, and I am making such frame changes in the sprites editing, when I need something "out-of-ordinary".

But there is still the very problem, what seems to be a bug in JSWED. Yes, the same what I have described already. I may get a perfect (or near enough, so the player won´t notice or care) vertical sprite movement and animation, in guardian editing box. In a way that guardian moves up using frames 0 and 1 only until reaching the top limit of the movement and then moves down using frames 2 and 3 only until reaching the bottom limit of the movement and then goes up again using frames 0 and 1 only, etc.. It looks perfect, until I close guardian editing box by pressing [Ok]. I then switch to other room and back to see the current changes, and what I will see is that guardian animation timing is all wrong. Ie "going-up-frames" will get changed to "going-down-frames" too early or too late, and vice-versa. Hopefully you will understand now. 🙂

 

18 hours ago, Spider said:

Excellent description Danny.

Yes that guardian edit has caught me too.

Although not 100% neccessary I do find it helpful to make sure the guardian I am altering is the selected one then use ALT+(number) for it.

As you say sometimes you have to try it a few times until it looks OK. I also find moving screens, even just a quick left / right back to the original screen is helpful as it resets their initial positions.

Also, at least on "my" JSWED, a quick left / right also changes previous guardian movement to current guardian movement changes. But you probably meant that, too. 🙂

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Jet Set Willie

[jetsetdanny]

Jet Set Willie,

I think I know what you mean, but I can't quite relate to it, because I generally don't believe there is a problem of the kind that you set some parameters for the guardians in JSWED, they look good to you, you press OK and leave the room (or perhaps just the guardian editing box), you come back to the room and the guardian movement is messed up.

I don't think JSWED has this kind of problem, UNLESS you are trying to set invalid guardian parameters. Then problems of various kinds can appear.

I have reproduced one of them. Please have a look at the video attached to this message. I modified guardian G20 in "Under the MegaTree" so that its bounds are from 010 to 030, and I also placed its starting point outside of its range, somewhere in between 000 and 010. The guardian's starting direction is to the left. So at the start (when Willy enters or re-enters this room) it goes to the left (outside of its regular boundaries), leaves the screen, reenters it on the right, and even though from then on it moves within its regular boundaries, its animation is not what it should be, it looks like it's using just one frame instead of 8.

Is this the kind of problem you have been describing?

If it is, then the only thing I can say is that I believe it arises because you are setting "abnormal" values for the guardian, and something happens that causes a problem. I *think* (wouldn't argue about it) that it's a limitation of the game engine, not JSWED (the only accusation against JSWED could be that it shouldn't let you do it at all, like it shouldn't let you input animation numbers higher than 07).

With horizontal guardians, you can get away with placing their starting position outside of their regular range provided that their starting direction is so that they get into their regular range without leaving the room. So if in the attached example I set guardian G20's starting direction to the right, it would go to the right when you enter the room (only once outside of its range!) and fall within its regular boundaries, preserving the correct animation. Such tricks have been applied in games before.

However, if the guardian leaves and re-enters the room, something happens that messes it up. As mentioned above, I believe it's a limitation of the game engine. JSWED lets you set "abnormal" values, but the results may be abnormal, too. It's your risk. If you stick to "normal" values, you should be fine.

So my general advice would be to just stick to "normal" values, regular guardians, so to speak, because I don't recall JSWED ever creating any problems with these. Of course, if you want to experiment, it's up to you, but you have to keep in mind that your experiments may be doomed to failure 😉 .

If you want further feedback, it migth be useful if you could also show us in a recording what exactly you are doing in JSWED - when one sees it, it should be easier to react than from a verbal description. Unless you don't want to reveal your creative secrets yet 😉 .

P.S. I have also tried playing the game in the emulator, with guardian G20 set as in the attached example. The guardian goes to the left at the start of the game (as expected) and then Willy gets killed repeatedly, because the guardian seems to crash against something when re-rentering the room from the right. So evidently this is not something you can do in JSW, at least not in the standard JSW48 game engine (the one used in the original "Jet Set Willy").